Is he tall?

We'd been talking about going to Chinatown for lab lunch. Amy is kosher, so she doesn't come. Well Bob had to stay and do work, so Lili and I volunteered to go buy the stuff and bring it back.
Of course I wanted Spring World $4 lunch special, followed by Joy Yee's Bubble Tea.
As some of you may know, I'm a big fan of the $4 lunch special. It's actually really really good, and they could probably charge 5-7 and still get away with it. I went many times during M2 year when we skipped pharm and/or had a late afternoon workshop, usually with different people depending on the week.

Anyway, I had Lili call them and make sure they would let us get lunch special to go. She claimed she'd never heard of Spring World, even after I described the food and location of it. Well she called them and spoke in Chinese and confirmed it all it was ok. Now that she knew the Chinese name, she had in fact been there many times, and said it was "#2 best!" so I was happy. (When I first did my rotation, we went to #1 best! Lao Sze Chuan.)
So we go there, get the lunch menu, order some things to bring back, etc. The other waitress who she talked to on the phone comes out, says hi, and they talk in Chinese for a minute. We left to go get our bubble teas while they cooked the food.

On the walk, Lili explains that she had asked the woman on the phone originally "Which restaurant are you? American guy in my lab like very much!" and then realized what it was when she heard the Chinese name. The woman had asked "Is he tall?" and Lili said yes. Well their conversation after we ordered consisted of the watiress saying: "Yes! That is American I think of! He come here lot!"

Apparently I'm famous in Chinatown.

And on the drive back, I pointed out Nuevo Leon to Lili - now she wants our next lab lunch to be there. "I have had Mexican food, but never in restaurant." We'll be changing that. :)